A little while ago Blizzard mentioned that they had a new Real ID feature in development--one that would allow Real ID friends to form parties across multiple realms, so that friends can run dungeons together, even if they are not on the same server.

Well, this feature is now somewhat done and available to be tested for free. Blizzard also mentioned that this will be one of the premium features of the Real ID service, so it might become paid in the future.

When delving into the depths of Azeroth's darkest dungeons, it always helps to have some friends at your side... now you're able to issue a call to arms no matter what realm they play on. We're pleased to announce the new Real ID Party feature is now available for testing! This new feature will allow World of Warcraft players to invite their real-life Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon.

To learn more about Real ID, please visit the Real ID web page and read the FAQ.

For more information about how the Real ID Party system works, check out the FAQ below.

Real ID Party Feature – Test Phase FAQ

Q: What is the Real ID Party feature?A: Players can now invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a 5-player normal or Heroic dungeon group, regardless of what realm their friends are on. This system is designed to make it easier for real-life friends to play together.

Q: How do I invite Real ID friends to a Real ID party?A: Inviting a Real ID friend to a Real ID Party is simple. Just open up your Friends list to see which Real ID friends are online. Click on the “Plus” button to send an invitation to a Real ID friend to join your group. You can continue to add Real ID friends to your party until the group is complete. If you cannot complete the group with Real ID friends, you are free to join the Dungeon Finder to fill in the missing roles.

Q: Does a player need to have Real ID enabled to accept a Real ID group invite?A: Yes, a player must have Real ID enabled, and both players must be Real ID friends to accept or initiate Real ID party invitations.

Q: Can a party leader invite a mix of Real ID friends, character-level friends, guildmates, or random players to the same party?A: A party leader can invite any combination of Real ID friends from any realm, guildmates from the same realm, or other characters from the same realm to the same party. If the party leader isn’t able to fill up the entire party, the Dungeon Finder can fill in the missing roles.

Q: Can I invite someone who is not a Real ID friend?A: You can only invite members to a party if they are on your Real ID friends list or if they are on the same realm as you are.

Q: Can I invite a friend of a Real ID friend?A: No, you can only invite your own Real ID friends to the party.

Q: How long will the testing period last?A: We haven’t yet determined how long the testing period will last. We'll keep you updated on the status and inform you when the test period is going to end in the future.

Q: Will aspects of the Real ID Party system be premium-based?A: We'll have information on this toward the end of the testing period.

Valor Points

This is an explanation of why tier 11 raids don't give valor points. Honestly, it still doesn't make sense; the blue says they shouldn't be easy to obtain, but ZG/ZA are way easier than organizing a tier 11 raid.

it seems weird yes but look at it this way, t11 raids reward the points to buy t11 gear.

That's a significant part of the thought process, yes. Also, Valor Points are intended to reward top quality items, and we don't think that they should be trivial to obtain in any significant numbers. Allowing them to persist in older content once new raids are added would defeat that purposes.

Besides, there should be some added incentive to explore those older raids in the future anyway.

Daily Limits

A lot of people have found themselves with too many dailies. It must be a nightmare juggling all the new ones if you're still trying to get your reputations up.

Is there a point in daily quest limits? Yes. Of course there is. Dailies allow people the opportunity to gain (in some cases) reputation as well as money or skills. We also don't want people feeling that they need to do 100+ daily quests a day just because they can either. It should also be about making choices on an individual basis about what quests you want to work on and still not get overwhelmed by the amount of dailies you feel you need to do each day.

People have asked us if we'd ever raise the cap to this, and we can't say we never will. If the time comes that we think it's a good idea, we'll address the possibility then. For now, it's as it is.

Targeting Issues Not Fixed Yet

Our programmers and QA analysts are working on this. There are actually a few unique targeting issues which are all documented and being investigated independently, as they're technically unrelated.

If it was a bug that somehow benefited players it'd have been hotfixed immediately yet here we are 3 weeks later without a word on an ETA for a fix for it.

It has very little to do with bug priorities, or our willingness to fix what you think we think isn't a big deal. Each bug entered into the system is a unique case and requires any number of verification methods. The process for properly identifying and addressing a bug is no more or less important depending on the type/severity of the bug.

It's also worth keeping in mind that some bugs can be addressed via a hotfix fairly easily, while others cannot be fixed without releasing a client patch. And no matter how minor the patch, building and releasing it globally is still a major logistical undertaking.

The issue specifically with targeting dead targets will require a client-side patch to address.

Comment by Kendrubbin

Comment by cj237

on 2011-07-14T14:50:06-05:00

The daily quest limit is quite bothersome. After doing all the Molten Front dailies, as well as Tol Barad and cooking/JC, I'm left with very few remaining dailies available. This makes it frustrating to complete the Argent Tournament, Sunwell, etc.

It would be nice to see a slight increase, even if it was only 10 quests or so. It'd allow people to complete most, if not all, of the current Cata dailies, while also being able to pick a good number of WotLK/BC dailies to complete.

Comment by Interest

on 2011-07-14T15:01:55-05:00

Please don't make cross realm grouping cost money =(.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2011-07-14T15:03:40-05:00

Please don't make cross realm grouping cost money =(.

I made a cross realm group today, and I haven't paid anything new. That said, didn't actually run a real instance yet heh.

Comment by Contay

on 2011-07-14T15:14:36-05:00

Here I was thinking it was an addon that was screwing with my targeting, since I had installed a new, overencompassing UI mod package just days before 4.2 came out.

Glad to see that it's not the UI package then. :D

Please don't make cross realm grouping cost money =(.

I made a cross realm group today, and I haven't paid anything new. That said, didn't actually run a real instance yet heh.

That's because, as noted in this article you replied to, it's in testing phase. As soon as they're done testing, you'll lose the ability to RealID group and will have to likely pay an additional 2 bucks a month to continue.

Comment by SpareSimian

on 2011-07-14T15:15:20-05:00

Too bad we can't have cross-faction groups for PvE content. All my Horde are languishing on one realm while I level my Alliance on another. (Not enough character slots per realm to put them on the same realm, since I have a complete suite of every class/race in each faction.)

Comment by kschiasson

on 2011-07-14T15:18:05-05:00

it will cost money, just a testing phase now

Comment by Interest

on 2011-07-14T15:24:14-05:00

Please don't make cross realm grouping cost money =(.

I made a cross realm group today, and I haven't paid anything new. That said, didn't actually run a real instance yet heh.

Q: Will aspects of the Real ID Party system be premium-based? (Premium usually means it would cost money, kind of like Wowhead's Premium features.)A: We'll have information on the premium-based aspects of the Real ID Party system toward the end of the testing period.

it will cost money, just a testing phase now

It's...probable...but I hope not.

Comment by Azazel

on 2011-07-14T15:58:20-05:00

And what about the BGs? Don't forget the PvPers Blizz. :(

Comment by Interest

on 2011-07-14T16:00:49-05:00

And what about the BGs? Don't forget the PvPers Blizz. :(

Oh I HOPE they actually allow cross realm queuing. Would be the biggest win ever.

Comment by LordBalrog

on 2011-07-14T16:36:14-05:00

The Valor Point explanation is total BS. If they are so concerned, just have the T11 bosses drop half or a quarter as many VPs as the T12 bosses. That way it feels a bit more rewarding than running Heroic 5-mans ....

Comment by Problimatic

on 2011-07-14T18:07:22-05:00

I just hope they end up making the cross realm grouping cross faction too. I wouldn't mind paying a couple extra bucks tbh if it meant I could group with my friends who for some reason don't play horde.

Comment by Rainemard

on 2011-07-14T19:56:35-05:00

Besides, there should be some added incentive to explore those older raids in the future anyway.

"!"

Bogus VP explanation followed by an obscure tidbit for the future of outdated raids... return of the weekly raid? Really I don't know why people are complaining about not getting VP in normal T11 raids, when you can reach the new VP cap without even stepping in a raid. Conversely, you can only obtain 25 CP/day without doing Arena or Rated Battlegrounds. (Yes, 2v2 Arenas are hardly 'group events' but from my perspective they still require more effort than a dungeon queue).

Also, it never ceases to amaze me that they even respond to crap like:

If it was a bug that somehow benefited players it'd have been hotfixed immediately yet here we are 3 weeks later without a word on an ETA for a fix for it.

That's just juvenile baiting, and Zarhym fell for it.

Comment by EiyuutheRed

on 2011-07-15T14:37:36-05:00

Glad they know the targeting bug is there. It's a real pain when I'm trying to fight of multiple mobs at once, and auto-target decides to pick something already dead. I was starting to think it was something I was doing causing it.

Comment by Interest

on 2011-07-15T15:00:03-05:00

I just hope they end up making the cross realm grouping cross faction too. I wouldn't mind paying a couple extra bucks tbh if it meant I could group with my friends who for some reason don't play horde.

I highly doubt that'll happen. It makes no sense.

And if you wanna talk to em, just use the Conversation option if needed.

Comment by SirPunky

on 2011-07-15T15:14:53-05:00

I highly doubt that'll happen. It makes no sense.

Why?Some Horde and Alliance adventurers meet at the entrance of a cave where a creature of unspeakable evil made lair.They put all animosities aside and work together to free the land from the reign of terror.Easy.

Comment by Interest

on 2011-07-15T15:28:09-05:00

I highly doubt that'll happen. It makes no sense.

Why?Some Horde and Alliance adventurers meet at the entrance of a cave where a creature of unspeakable evil made lair.They put all animosities aside and work together to free the land from the reign of terror.Easy.

Well, here's some reasons why:

1. They can't communicate with each other (different languages)2. Some dungeons are Horde/Alliance exclusive (The Nexus, for instance) Quest design is also exclusive, especially for revamped Vanilla dungeons.3. Cross faction communication is technically "against the rules." Faction changing and Real ID already push these bounds. Don't need more reasons to break the faction barriers.

Comment by Sweetscot

on 2011-07-15T16:21:04-05:00

On Dailies:They seriously need to either up that daily limit again or make old dailies not count toward cap (I'm inclined to the latter but either would work)

There's no logical reason why I can't do new dailies then go back and do netherwing or AT, the "well we don't want players playing too much" excuse is bull because since I can't do that I'll just go run bg or dungeon when I'd rather be working on a new dragon mount.

On RID Groups:I'm still vehemently anti-premium for RID gouping and would rather not see it in the game than see it be the biggest step yet toward a game with both a sub fee and cash shop. The whole topic makes me cringe.

On Valor Point:I can kinda see both sides on this one, I really don't think there is a good or right answer on that subject. Blizz and the players are both darned if they do darned if they don't.

Comment by Rainemard

on 2011-07-15T20:44:20-05:00

Don't need more reasons to break the faction barriers.

Imo, the language barrier is already highly superfluous. Emotes can easily convey simple thoughts, and when it comes to NPCs and Lore, the language barrier is ignored completely. It's obvious the only purpose the language barrier is meant to serve, is as an anti-griefing tool during PvP (though some enjoy it for RP, too). Now that we can have same-faction War Games, how are they going to prevent verbal abuse? Not that same-faction abuse is anything new...

I do agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense currently. For dungeons with faction-specific npcs, they could phase the instance NPCs per player, but I have no idea on a solution for faction-specific encounters, or how easily a cross-faction 5-man could be coded for compatibility. In the future though, I think an instance or two which showcased both factions working together would be very interesting.

For example, have a '5-man' instance which queues up 5 Horde and 5 Alliance players. They start at different areas and race through the instance, maybe meeting now and again for boss encounters, and whichever team makes it to the end first (or meets some goal) gets a bonus loot chest. The instance could be considered a "Sanctuary" to prevent unintended PvP actions during times when opposing factions are meant to work together.

Or, again have two 5-man teams queue up, but instead have the instance designed around both teams working together the entire time. That darned language barrier would potentially hinder newer groups attempting to progress though. And again, coding so players could cooperate (buffs, heals) cross-faction is an unknown variable for me.